Are Narcissists Funny or Do They Just Think They Are Funny?

Previous self-report research (e.g. Veselka, Schermer, Martin, & Vernon, 2010) has found that reports of affiliative humor are associated with narcissism, as well as interpersonal warmth, self-esteem, extraversion, and satisfaction with life. The current study extended this research by examining if observational assessments of affiliative humor were related to these variables, with a special emphasis on narcissism. To examine this, participants ( n =127) first completed self-report assessments of a series of personality measurements, including narcissism and affiliative humor. Next, participants were audio taped as they interacted with a confederate for fifteen minutes. At a later time, five raters judged each participant's use of affiliative humor from the audio taped interaction. Contrary to the hypothesis of the study, a trend was found suggesting that narcissists were actually more humorous during the observed interaction than their self-reports of humor usage. This suggests that narcissists might not think they are as funny as they really are. Implications for future research are discussed.